The Wildlife in Velun
In the living wilds of Velun, where shadow and shimmer braid through the undergrowth, where the stone remembers and the leaves whisper names, the creatures of this sacred land move not merely in survival—but in song. Every pulse of fur and feather, every glinting scale or whispered tread is a verse in an ancient melody composed by earth and echoed through sky. They are not pets, nor prey, nor pest—but spirits wrapped in form, allies of breath and root and hidden rhythm.
High above the canopy’s emerald breath, where cloudlight curls through the limbs of the velathi trees, glides the Seh’lura—long-winged sentinel of the sky. Its body arcs like a crescent blade cast in flight, its feathers shifting hue with the moods of light: dawn-rose, storm-silver, dusk-lilac. When it cries—a single riven note, it’s like silk torn on stone—the forest below listens. It feeds on mistflies, catching them mid-glide with an elegance that renders their end almost gentle. The Seh’lura is said to see threads not yet woven, and where its shadow touches the moss, dreams grow with new direction.
Drifting below its path, nested in the highest limbs, is the Jhenmae—six-limbed and soft-furred, cloaked in darkness like obsidian warmed by void embers. With membranes of twilight silk stretched between its limbs, it glides in hushed spiral loops from bough to bough. Its eyes glow with a liquid gleam, wide as longing, ringed in gentle pool glass. It hums—not to speak, but to feel—and in that vibration it communes with the Seh’lura, echoing notes passed from sky to limb. As it feeds on Skyvane leaves and nectar-slick Eshmura Blossoms, its fur dusts pollen over the wind, gifting bloom where it drifts upon velathi arms stretched in welcome.
It is the nectar’s perfume that draws the Tirashi—those vine-dancers of the middle canopy, with bodies banded like sun through reeds and movements spun from ribbon and mischief. They cling and coil with eel-like grace, weaving laughter through their tails as they chirrup in bright, syncopated rain-song. The Tirashi adore the Jhenmae’s pollen trails, nibbling on the sweetened air it leaves behind. In spiraling families, they sleep in bundles like blossoms folding for dusk, and awaken with the sun’s kiss to harvest Kurell fruit with reverent joy. Their presence makes the leaves sway with delight, and the forest’s calm mirth gathers beneath them.
Where the vines taper and root gives way to moss, the Felnai slips like smoke—its body low, lean, and shadow-sleek, with fur dark as storm-wet ash. The Tirashi scatter when it prowls, though not from fear, but respect. The Felnai moves with reverence, its long paws splayed for silence, its breath edged with peppermint and dusk. When it hunts, it dances a slow ritual, circling prey with whispered growls that seem to ask permission more than declare intent. It feeds little but watches much. In its presence, even the restless Tirashi grow still. Some say the Jhenmae hum in harmony with its breath, honoring a shared grace in their silence.
But when stillness breaks into shimmer, the Lunari Swifts streak through the leaves—fire-laced, jewel-winged, a scattering color through the mist. Their songs are dawn’s first language, chittering duets that carve spiral wake glyphs into the air. They trace the paths once flown by the Seh’lura, mimic the turns of the Tirashi, and flutter down near the paws of the Felnai to drink dew gathered in leaf-cups. Their tail-feathers sweep pollen into motion, guiding it like blessings over the moss. In their ever-wake, light bends and velathi memory stirs. When a Lunari lands upon a stone marked by old names, it is said that something sleeping beneath the soil awakens into low murmur music.
Beneath that mossed-over stone and the curled roots of elder trees, the Murn-Veka slides—slow, glass-bodied, luminous like fog caught in crystal. Its nodal spine glows with a pulse that matches the moon’s breath, and its slime-trail glimmers violet in the night. It feeds upon damp-bellied fungi and dew-fed mushrooms, many seeded by the Lunari’s wanderings above. When alarmed, it folds into itself, becoming a puddle of mirrored stillness. The Felnai will sometimes pause near it, neither predator nor passerby, as if acknowledging a kindred calm. The Jhenmae, too, are drawn to the cool quiet it leaves in its path, often landing where the Murn-Veka last glided to sip from the pools it forms.
Across the leaf litter and between hollowed bark crawls the Vithyr—woven of whiskers and glint, with hair-thin scales patterned like ancient braille. It scuttles like rustling thought, harvesting the remnants left behind by others: Lunari petals, Jhenmae seed-husks, the soft decay of Kurell fruit. Its carapace spirals with marks uncannily like Aevori stonework, and it builds small towers of bone and moss that mimic the grand monuments above. They sometimes rest where Murn-Veka pools have glowed, as though drawn to that lingering mystery. When the Vithyr passes, seeds long buried begin to stir, having tasted its breath laced with dreams.
Deep below where even the roots end, through warm earthen veins carved by time, dwell the Ilvath—blind, ember-skinned, and pulsing with subterranean heat. Their motion is slow but vital, as they tunnel through memory itself, churning soil and tracing through ancient layers of forest sleep. They never meet the Vithyr, nor the Murn-Veka, but their passage aerates the soil that feeds the fungi those others live on. Their soft ultrasonic trills vibrate up through the ground, and the roots of velathi trees shiver slightly in response. Occasionally, they emerge by geothermal vents where the Lunari’s paths curl above, warming their mineral-rich hides in silent communion with the land.
Where cliff meets cloud, the Shyren Kites ride salt-thick winds—sail-winged, translucent-bellied, luminous under moon. They echo the Seh’lura’s call in mournful, drifting tones, the two often crossing paths in wind-dances older than memory. Once a year, they descend as the Seh’lura rises, a passing of the sky’s baton. They drink the sea, and in doing so, call clouds inland that mist the velathi forest and feed the Eshmura blooms. Their song touches all—from the Ilvath below to the Tirashi who tilt heads to listen, to the Druven Hounds who lift muzzles and join them in chorus.
Those Druven Hounds, with their fur woven by moss and seasonal weather, live not within homes but in thresholds—between joy and grief, between gathering and solitude. They walk beside the Aevori in times of deep becoming, appearing from fog like a thought given form. They move among the other creatures with quiet grace, sniffing trails the Vithyr once laid, curling beneath trees where Murn-Veka shimmered. Their howls are remembered by the Shyren and harmonized by the Jhenmae’s hums. They are mourners and midwives alike, watching each passage and transformation of the cycles.
And then, at the still center of it all, where light arrives only as a story told through leaf and wind, the Aelithe steps. They do not move so much as become—a creature antlered and aglow, part deer, part reptile, part lucid tone, part fire dreaming of flesh. It is seen only by those on the edge of becoming—whether in death, epiphany, or devotion. When it walks, the Lunari sing more softly. The Felnai lays down its hunt. The Murn-Veka waits unmoving in reverence. Even the Ilvath pause in their tunnels, vibrating stillness. Wherever the Aelithe walks, old seeds crack open in sacrificed readiness.
Together, they do not form a chain, but a constellation. A glimmering harmony of fur, claw, wing, root, and breath. Each spirit follows a rhythm shaped by another, unseen but deeply felt. The Seh’lura spirals where the Shyren will descend. The Jhenmae hums what the Tirashi dance. The Murn-Veka cools the earth for the Ilvath’s passage, and the Vithyr composes monuments from their forgotten paths. The Aelithe walks not alone, but carried in the memory of each.
For the forest of Velun does not merely host life.
It sings it into wake and sleep—and listens as its respiration blooms.
